Rugby Days. 57 



and sometimes ride with better nerve than at 

 any other period of their lives. I may also 

 add, in confirmation of this, that I never saw 

 boys handle a gun so early or so well as the 

 young Cokes of Norfolk did. Precocious 

 sportsmen of this kind are generally looked 

 on with the deepest reverence by their younger 

 schoolfellows, who accept all their stories, true 

 or legendary, for gospel, and lament the hard 

 fate which may have assigned the direction 

 of their own lot to a matter-of-fact guardian 

 or a serious aunt. Boys, however, seldom 

 take much interest in racing unless they are 

 bred in the very vicinity of a racing stable, 

 and have been accustomed to drink in inspira- 

 tion from an occasional private view of a 

 'Yorkshire gallop,' or a 'rattling sweat,' or 

 from hearing a groom relate how some famous 

 trainer's head lad had put him up to a good 

 thing for the Chester Cup or the Derby. 

 When they make their ddbut at a public 

 school, their eyes and ears soon begin to get 

 more widely opened. BelFs Life, The Era, 

 and The Sporting Magazine — which high- 

 minded masters of private ' academies ' re- 

 gard, along with Ainsworth's novels, as works 



